


If So, Be Free

by SinceWhenDoIWriteFanFic



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:39:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinceWhenDoIWriteFanFic/pseuds/SinceWhenDoIWriteFanFic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion Piece to Delicate. Blaine's POV.<br/>Warnings for mentions of a hate crime, homophobic language, and infidelity</p>
            </blockquote>





	If So, Be Free

Blaine doesn’t even realize he’s different until his parents send him off to educational enrichment program the summer between his sophomore and junior years of high school. For eight weeks, he spends his weekdays in a stuffy lecture hall with nearly one hundred other boys, memorizing Latin conjugations and reading classic British literature and reciting Shelly and Eliot. He’s used to living in a dorm from the normal school year, but the boys he’s forced to live with that summer are loud and crude. On his third night there, he walks in on one of his roommates masturbating.  
“Oh, sorry!” Blaine cries out.  
“It’s fine,” Ben tells him before grunting loudly and coming over his fist.  
Blaine tries to fight the blush that must be rising on his cheeks as he pretends to look through his closet. He waits until his roommate leaves, his footsteps gradually fading as he makes his way to the bathroom, to let out a quiet murmur of disbelief.  
The very next night, a group of boys are heading into the city for a night out. Blaine declines the offer to join them, citing the amount of memorization the need to have done for the following week.  
Ben tosses him a magazine on his way out. “Have fun,” he says with a wink.  
Curiously, Blaine opens the magazine to a random page.  
And immediately slams it back shut. He squeezes his eyes shut, but the image of a naked woman, fingers pressed inside herself, is burned behind his eyelids. Taking a deep breath, he opens his eyes and opens the magazine back up.  
It’s a different picture this time, a different woman, too. This one is squatting, a piece of plastic in the shape of a penis halfway inside of her. He takes in the curve of her hip, her peaked nipple, her mouth in a perfect O.  
He feels nothing. No arousal, no desire to turn to the next page. Still, he flips through the pages, thinking maybe one of the pictures will appeal to him.  
When nothing jumps out at him, he flings the magazine towards his roommate’s bed. A part of him wonders if he should be worried that the women in the magazine don’t turn him on, but he writes off his disinterest as delayed development. After all, he’s only just kissed a girl for the first time a few weeks before the end of the school year, and he still hasn’t had his last growth spurt yet. He’s not worried. 

**  
On the final night of the program, the rest of the boys throw a party in one of the dormitories. Blaine tags along, only partially nervous about getting caught.  
Someone manages to sneak in a few bottles of alcohol, and after a few strong drinks, Blaine can feel the warmth radiating from his cheeks. He settles on the floor next to a group of boys and pretends to be interested when one of them shares the story of the time his girlfriend let him finger her.  
“Are you okay, Blaine?” Blaine looks up to see James staring down at him. “You look like you’re going to fall asleep.”  
“I am a little sleepy,” he admits.  
“Come on, I’ll walk you back to your room,” James offers, holding his hand out to help Blaine haul himself to his feet.  
Outside of Blaine’s door, James leans in close. “You’re very attractive, Blaine,” he compliments, one hand resting on Blaine’s chest.  
Part of Blaine thinks that it’s a weird thing to say. James is cute, freckled cheeks and an only barely audible southern accent, but Blaine would never think to say so out loud.  
“Have you ever kissed a boy?” James asked. When Blaine shakes his head, his mouth quirks into a smile. “Would you like to?”  
Blaine isn’t aware of saying anything, but he must, because James is leaning in, his palm resting against Blaine’s cheek. Blaine lets his eyes drift close and he waits.  
James mouth is like fire against his own, his lips slightly chapped but so strong and sure as they move. His chest is firm against Blaine’s, none of the softness that a girl would have. He can feel James’ other hand pushing against Blaine’s hip, holding him against the wall.  
It’s not until James’ tongue slides into his mouth, rubbing against his own, that Blaine realizes that he’s hard. He’s hard and kissing a boy, and with a start, he pushes James away.  
“Goodnight,” he says before slipping inside his room and flinging himself down on the bed.  
Now, he’s a little bit worried. 

**  
Homosexual. Gay. Faggy. Blaine finally admits it to himself after he wakes up from yet another dream with wet, sticky underpants. He knows that these dreams are normal, his mother had told him as much after the first time she caught him stuffing his soiled sheets into the washing machine when he thought the rest of the family was still sleeping. Somehow, Blaine doubts his mother would think the dreams were so normal is she knew that they were about men. 

**  
At the beginning of his last year of high school, Blaine scrounges up the courage to ask his parents.  
“There’s a rumor that one of the guy’s on the soccer team at St. Andrews is gay,” he says one night over dinner. He figures that making up a rumor about someone at a different school means it’ll be less likely for either of his parents to see through his lies.  
His mother lets out a horrified gasp. “His poor family,” she says, taking a long drink from her wine glass.  
“If you hear anything like that about someone on your team, stay away from them,” his father warns.  
A wave of nausea rolls over him. “Why?”  
His father’s mouth presses into a thin line. “It’s not normal to be that way, Blaine. It’s wrong and it’s dirty. Completely unacceptable.”  
“Yes, sir,” he mumbles, his appetite suddenly gone. 

**  
Blaine hears things about New York, about how people there are more understanding about people like him, boys who like boys and girls that like other girls. He adds NYU to his list of colleges to apply to. When he puts his application in the mail, he says a silent prayer. 

**  
Spring comes, bringing more anxiety than Blaine thinks he’ll be able to bear.  
A boy Blaine’s own age from two towns over is found beaten to death in alleyway near a movie theater. There are hushed rumors spread that the boy was gay, that he’d been caught kissing another boy in a dark theater by the wrong people.  
The words make Blaine’s blood run cold.  
“He got what was coming to him,” his father states over breakfast one morning. 

 

When Blaine’s acceptance letter to NYU comes the next afternoon, he locks himself in his bedroom and sobs.

**

New York is better. Blaine learns how to read subtle looks from across crowded rooms, and he lets himself experiment with a few people.  
The first time he kisses a boy and is completely sober happens at a Halloween party at the beginning of his sophomore year.  
Lucas is tall with broad shoulders and red hair. When Blaine meets him, Lucas is wearing a superhero costume, complete with tights. Less than twenty minutes after they exchange names, Blaine finds himself tucked away in a closet with Lucas’ tongue in his mouth.  
Without the haze alcohol, Blaine is fully aware of how it feels as Lucas presses him against the wall, the taste of cigarettes on his tongue as he works Blaine’s mouth open with his own, the way Lucas’ erection digs into his hip as they rut against one another. 

**  
It might have been love, but Blaine doesn’t know- how can he know when he’s never been in love before? In any case, when Lucas says the words to him sometime after New Years, Blaine says them back. 

**

“Fuck you, Blaine,” Lucas spits out. “You’re a fucking coward.” He leaves, slamming the door shut behind him and leaving Blaine alone to pick up the glass from the shattered picture frame.  
He doesn’t know what Lucas was so mad: he’d always been clear with him that his parents could never know about him being gay- it just wasn’t possible for Blaine to introduce Lucas to them.  
He sighs, carefully picking the shards of glass up off of the carpet. The photo, Blaine and Lucas with their arms slung across one another’s shoulders, is punctured.  
Blaine tosses it into the trashcan without a second thought.

**  
He meets Marley during his senior year when they end up in a concert piano elective together.  
“Blaine! Could I borrow your sheet music to make a copy? I lost mine,” she asks when they bump into each other on campus one afternoon.  
“Yeah, of course,” Blaine tells her, digging through his bag for the folder he keeps all of his sheet music in.  
He ends up going with her as she makes a copy of it, and then they end up grabbing lunch together.  
Marley tells him that she’s only a sophomore, and that she just transferred to NYU from some state college a few miles away from the town she grew up in.  
“I just felt like I was suffocating there, you know?” she shares as they split an order of French fries.  
He thinks back to sitting across from his father at the dining room table, the words ‘he got what was coming to him’ echoing in his head. “Yeah, I totally understand,” Blaine agrees.  
Marley wants to be a music teacher, she tells him.  
When the bill comes, Blaine insists on paying. He ignores the blushing smile Marley gives him when he drops her off at the building where she has her next class. 

**  
They hang out a few times a week, Blaine inviting Marley out for a movie or Marley insisting that they go check out some art exhibit.  
Blaine likes her, he realizes one evening. Not in a sexual way or even in a romantic way, but in a completely platonic way. He was fun with her, and that’s what eventually convinces him to ask her to be his girlfriend.  
He only feels a little bit guilty when she says yes with a happy smile. 

**

His parents are excited when he introduces them to Marley when they come for his graduation. She completely charms them, and when Blaine comes back to the city after a visit home to celebrate with his family, he asks her to move in with him.  
It’s weird, sharing a bed with her every night. They end up having sex more often, too.  
By the end of the first month, Blaine nearly runs out of men to fantasize about. 

**  
They’ve already been together for over two years by the time Blaine considers breaking up with her. But he thinks of the way she greets him with a comforting hug when he comes home from a long day of grad school classes, or the grateful smile she gives him when he helps her with her senior thesis, and he can’t go through with it.  
Instead, the night before her graduation, he kneels down in front of her on the linoleum floor of their kitchen and proposes.

**  
It could be a lot worse, Blaine reminds himself. He reminds himself whenever Marley wants to have sex, or whenever his parents start to pressure them to have kids, or whenever he wakes up from a dream about firm chests and hard cocks with an erection of his own.  
It could be worse.

**  
The night of their 15 year anniversary, Blaine slips out of bed without waking Marley. He sits on the balcony and nurses scotch after scotch, wondering how he’d allowed himself to live this lie for so long. 

**

I would rather be anywhere else in the world, he thinks to himself as he looks up at another painting. He’s only here because Marley loves the artist and her birthday is coming up; Blaine hopes that getting her one of his works will make her happy.  
“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” comes a voice, interrupting his internal whining.  
Blaine lets out a snort of laugher before he can stop it. He turns to his side, jaw dropping slightly when he sees the beautiful man speaking to him. He only half-listens as the stranger explains the emotion of the piece, too distracted by the color of his eyes. Blaine idly realizes he’s never felt the way the stranger describes about another person.  
He wants to say so, but settles for saying something about how he doesn’t get that from the piece. The he offers his hand, hoping the stranger takes it. “Blaine Anderson.”  
“Kurt Hummel.” His hand is soft to the told, but his handshake is firm. “Pleasure to meet you.”

*  
He doesn’t mean for it to happen, lost in Kurt’s confident touches and the talent with which he manages to completely unravel Blaine.  
After he comes, he holds Kurt close, trying not to think of anything. He follows him to the kitchen, unable to keep his eyes off of the man’s naked body. Blaine knows he should go, get out before it’s too late, but he’s drawn in by Kurt’s humor.  
The words “I’m married” leave a bitter taste in his mouth that doesn’t dissipate for weeks. 

**

He’s in the living room with Marley, watching the news when his phone rings.  
“Hello?”  
“Hi,” comes an unmistakable voice from the other end of the line. “This is Kurt.”  
“Oh- could you hold on a moment?” He turns to Marley. “It’s work,” he tells her as he escapes to the balcony.  
“This late?” she asks, giving a sympathetic wince.  
He keeps an eye on her through the glass, wanting to make sure she doesn’t overhear his conversation.  
“I’ve gotta go into the office,” he tells her when he comes back in.  
“Ouch,” she says, tilting her head up. Blaine drops a kiss on her forehead, ignoring the guilt churning in his stomach. “Want me to wait up for you?”  
“No, that’s okay. I don’t know how late I’ll be,” he tells her, grabbing his coat. 

*  
He slips into bed well after midnight, still feeling the phantom press of Kurt’s lips against his own.  
“Everything okay?” Marley asks, still half asleep.  
“Everything’s fine, why?” he says, tucking the blankets back around her; she always kicks them off.  
“You smell like you just showered. Gym?”  
Blaine lets out a quiet breath of relief. “Not for stress,” he tells her. “Just thought it might help me get to sleep better.”

**

Sometimes, Blaine wonders if Marley knows. She doesn’t ever give off any hints that she does, acting as she normally does.  
But, still, he can’t help but wonder. 

 

**  
He doesn’t fully understand how hard it is for Kurt until he’s left sitting in the hallway outside of his apartment for an hour. Kurt’s anger rolls off of him in waves when he finally comes home and argues with Blaine, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it does.  
He promises to be better.  
When he gets home, he finds that Marley’s curled up in his old NYU shirt, fast asleep. 

 

**  
Marley waits for him to blow out the candles on his cake.  
“Did you make a wish?” she asks as she dishes two slices.  
“I did,” Blaine says, taking a bite.  
“What was it?”  
“If I tell you, it won’t be true,” he teases.  
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry you’re stuck doing work stuff over your birthday weekend,” she says.  
Blaine swallows hard. “It’s okay.”  
Marley looks up at him, her expression blank, and Blaine thinks to himself, this is it. But then she just smiles and takes another bite of her cake. 

**

When Blaine locates Kurt making his way towards baggage claim, he calls out his name excitedly. He wraps Kurt in a hug as soon as he can reach him and buries his nose against his neck, just breathing in the scent of his cologne.  
It feels like home.  
His first thought is of Kurt’s description of that painting, the one they’d met while looking at.  
His second thought is: I need to divorce Marley.  
Because as much as he cares about her, he won’t ever love her as much as he loves Kurt. And she deserves someone who can love her properly; at the very least she deserves a husband who’s honest with her. 

 

His revelation makes him excited, and in his excitement, he allows himself to think of the future, of a future with Kurt. He refers to Kurt as his boyfriend openly and excessively and he gets a thrill each time the word leaves his lips. 

*  
“How do you want me, birthday boy?” Kurt purrs from the bed.  
Blaine starts to say he wants Kurt to fuck him, but he cuts himself off. Not yet, not until you do what you have to do, he tells himself. 

**

He signs the lease during his lunch break, knowing how much Marley loves their place and thinking that he owes it to her to let her have it. He hands the documents back to the realtor and thinks to himself, this is it. He’s taken a definitive step towards separating himself from his wife, from the lie he’s been living since he was a teenager.  
When he sees Kurt that evening, he finally lets himself to ask for what he wants. He finds the feel of Kurt’s cock inside him overwhelming in the best possible way, and he knows he’s doing the right thing.

**  
Kurt’s father is intimidating, but he can see all the good qualities he’s passed down to his son. He hopes that he makes a good impression; he wants Kurt to be proud of him, proud of their relationship.  
When he leaves, he hopes that Burt likes him. He doesn’t know if Kurt needs his father’s approval, but if he does, he hopes Burt gives it.

**  
Blaine never would have guessed that it would take so much work to prepare for a divorce. He hasn’t had time to see Kurt in almost a week.  
He sends a quick text to him, letting him know he’s missed. Then he checks his to-do list.

**  
He gets the text from Kurt as he finishes a meeting with his lawyer.  
When can I see you again?  
Blaine glances down at the large envelope containing a preliminary divorce agreement. Tomorrow. He adds a question mark and hits send.  
Tomorrow, he thinks, shoving the envelope into his bag.

**

“Marley?” He calls out. “Can you come here for a second?”  
She pops out of her music room. “What’s up?” she asks, her brow furrowed.  
“I need you to know that I love you, and I’m sorry,” he says, knowing that he’s going to hurt her no matter how understanding she ends up being about the whole thing and regretting that fact.  
“Is everything okay?”  
Blaine takes a deep breath. “I’ve been having an affair.”  
He doesn’t even realize he’s been slapped until a moment later when his brain registers his cheek stinging.  
“I fucking knew it,” Marley hisses at him. “I thought I was going insane.”  
“Wait,” he pleads. “Marley, I’m gay.”  
Her expression softens, and Blaine spills out everything. When she asks him to leave, he agrees, handing her the envelope and asking her to look it over. 

When Kurt opens that door, Blaine feels free for the first time in his life and he tries to pour everything he’s feeling into that kiss.  
“I love you,” he tells Kurt, and it feels like a promise for more; giddily, he thinks of what it means now that they don’t have to hide. It gives him idea.  
He listens to Kurt babble on about his cheek for a moment before dismissing his concern.  
“Grab your jacket,” Blaine tells him.  
He’s done hiding.


End file.
